Cycling is about "Safe exercise" and "Safe low-emission travel" The Health and Fitness objective is UNDERMINED if the means of exercise is UNSAFE! This blog STRONGLY OPPOSES certain reforms VicRoads is currently considering: “cyclists could be allowed to treat red lights as Give Way signs. And the same could also APPLY at pedestrian lights."
Also "PERMITTING cyclists, riding cautiously, to proceed past a stationary tram;" "allowing teenagers to ride on footpaths"(Herald Sun)PDowe

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Cyclists and TAC Third Party Insurance

Examine the
Facts

Shaun Reynolds of Carnegie (Sense on Cyclists Opinion June
30) refers to compulsory third party insurance for cyclists as a silly idea. Really?

Hundreds more cyclists in Victoria are being hurt each year.

Transport Accident Commission data shows that in 2003, 3.6 per
cent of approved claims for taxpayer assistance for medical bills came from
cyclists.

But in 2007 cyclists made up 5.4 per cent of approved
claims.

A Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC) study
of injured cyclists between 1999 and 2008 found that
collisions with parked cars, or other stationary objects such as bollards, made up just 5 per cent of hospital admissions,

but a third of admissions were from bicycle falls.

Bicycle Victoria says on its website that cyclists should
perhaps receive a tax rebate “for every day we ride because we are less of a
burden on the health system and the public purse”